Fairfax Media chairman Roger Corbett has warned it would be a "failure of leadership" if the government doesn't water down the country's "archaic" media ownership laws.
Mr Corbett also has an open mind on further radio merger discussions with Macquarie Radio Network, owner of Sydney talkback station 2UE, despite the "salty" language of majority shareholder John Singleton. The two companies have held talks for about a decade, but the latest failure descended into a war of words.
Mr Corbett praised the leadership of ABC managing director Mark Scott, but backed calls by News Corp Australia boss Julian Clarke for new media opportunities to be reserved for private-sector organisations.
But he criticised publishing rival News Corp for its "one-sided reporting of politics", its UK phone-hacking scandal, and its "vendetta" against Fairfax Media, the publisher of The Age, Sydney Morning Herald and the Australian Financial Review.
"There's always been a little bit of rivalry but I've never seen anything of this nature, and it would appear that it is orchestrated in some way, and it must be orchestrated from relatively senior levels of News," Mr Corbett said.
"But, you know, behaviour of this nature – the type of awfully biased one-sided reporting of politics, and indeed the [phone] tapping scandals in England – all do immense damage to the credibility of newspapers."
On the leak of News Corp Australia's 2013 operating accounts - showing continuing losses at its flagship publication The Australian and diving profits for its tabloids - Mr Corbett said he was not surprised, given declining revenues in print.
"The only difference is that Fairfax has started on the process of rationalising its costs and producing a digital offering that is amongst the best in the world," he said.
"News has got a long way to go down that track. And that is exactly what [former News Corp Australia boss] Kim Williams was endeavouring to do."
News Corp Australia has described the leaked figures as "14 months out of date" and Mr Clarke has said "all the trend lines that I am responsible for are all kicking the right way".
Mr Corbett called on News Corp to disclose its new numbers. "It's all very well to say that; if that's the case, show us the numbers."
News Corp's latest filings to the US show its Australian newspaper revenue fell 18 per cent in the 12 months to June 30. They also show News Corp boosted its Australian workforce by almost 1000 in the 2014 financial year, to 9000. News Corp declined to comment.
On media ownership, Mr Corbett said rules stopping metropolitan free-to-air broadcasters from buying their regional affiliates, and rules preventing someone from owning a commercial TV broadcasting licence, a commercial radio licence and a newspaper in the same city were "archaic".
"If the government is unable to make changes in areas that are crying out for change, that I think universally people think should be changed, that's a failure of government."
But he said laws requiring key sporting events to be broadcast on free-to-air TV, known as anti-siphoning laws, should stay. "I think there is community support and a good common-sense reason to keep the siphoning laws, if not strengthen them a little."
With speculation rife about which companies would merge if laws were changed, Mr Corbett declined to say what outcome Fairfax was pushing for, although he said it was "certainly not the case" that Fairfax was interested in buying a stake in Nine Entertainment. "The relationship with both Nine and Seven has been very close," he said. "With Ten, we've got cordial relationships, but because of the [Lachlan] Murdoch holding there it's a different type of relationship."
Questioned when Fairfax could arrest its revenue decline, Mr Corbett said he wasn't making any predictions. "We are seeing a slowing [in decline]," he said. "I think what we'll see is advertising that is jointly delivered on multiplatforms," he said, pointing to Fairfax's recent joint venture with Nine for a subscription-video-on-demand service, called StreamCo. Nine boss David Gyngell last week estimated streaming could attract 4 million local users by 2020.
On the prospect of a radio merger with Mr Singleton's Macquarie Radio, Mr Corbett said: "Where there's opportunity to effectively merge media assets, to the benefit of consumers and our shareholders and presumably their shareholders, well then, we'll always be open to any transaction in that direction."
But he noted that radio host Alan Jones comprised a chunk of 2GB's value.
